Third party call control application program interface

ABSTRACT

A third party call control (3PCC) application program interface (API) permits for users to use a web browser or other Internet capable software to place a call. The third party call control application program interface includes a first uniform resource locator operable over the Internet to effect a call between first and telephonic devices to be completed. The first uniform resource locator includes identification of the first telephonic device and identification of the second telephonic device.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a third party call control (3PCC) application program interface (API). This invention does relate to novel uses of a web browser or other Internet capable software specifically. This invention relates to a program and method for third party control of a telephonic call.

2. Description of the Related Art

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a category of hardware and software that enables people to use the Internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls by sending voice data in packets using Internet Protocol (IP) rather than by traditional circuit transmissions of the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN). This allows the elimination of circuit switching and the associated waste of bandwidth. Instead, packet switching is used, where IP packets with voice data are sent over the network only when data needs to be sent, i.e. when a caller is talking.

The advantages of VoIP over traditional telephony include; by way of example, are the following:

-   -   lower costs per call, especially for long-distance calls, and     -   lower infrastructure costs: that is, once this IP infrastructure         is installed, no or little additional telephony infrastructure         is needed.

However, despite the technological flexibility of VoIP system, callers are still limited to initiating calls manually, that is by using the alphanumeric keypad on a telephone.

The art has a clear need for important third party control of telephonic calls. The present invention provides a rotation to that art-felt need.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention, in one aspect, is a third party call control (3PCC) application program interface (API) that provides the capability for users to use a web browser or other Internet capable software to place a call, rather than using an alphanumeric keypad on a telephonic telephone. The open nature of the API also provides the capability to integrate 3PCC functionality with new or existing applications like customer relationship management (CRM), Contact management applications, and the like.

In one embodiment of the present invention, a third party call control application program interface comprises a first uniform resource locator operable over the Internet for causing a call between a first telephonic device and a second telephone device to be completed. The first uniform resource locator includes identification of the first telephonic device and identification of the second telephonic device.

In one aspect of the present invention, the first uniform resource locator may be generated on a computer system that is communicatively connected to a computer network, or public communication network such as the Internet. The call may be completed by initiating a call to the first telephonic device and then transferring the call, to complete the call, to the second telephonic device, at the time the call to the first telephonic device is answered. The call may be initiated to the first telephonic device using the Session Initiation Protocol INVITE method. The call may be transferred to the second telephonic device using the Session Initiation Protocol REFER method.

In one aspect of the present invention, the identification of the first telephonic device may include a telephone number of the first telephonic device, and the identification of the second telephonic device may include a telephone number of the second telephonic device. The third party call control application program may further include identification of an account to be billed. The identification of the first telephonic device may include a telephone number of the first telephone device, and the identification of the second telephonic device comprises a telephone number of the second telephonic device. The identification of the account to be billed may include the telephone number of the first telephonic device, the telephone number of the second telephonic device, or the telephone number of a third telephonic device.

In one aspect of the present invention, the third party call control application program may further include a second uniform resource locator operable over the Internet for obtaining information identifying an account to be billed. The information identifying an account to be billed may include at least one telephone number. At least one of the first uniform resource locator identification of the first telephonic device and the first uniform resource locator identification of the second telephonic device may include the at least one telephone number obtained by the second uniform resource locator.

In one aspect of the present invention, the third party call control application program may further include identification information and password information. The identification and password information is authenticated and validated before the completion of the call.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an exemplary block diagram of a system in which the present invention may be implemented.

FIG. 2 is an exemplary diagram of an implementation of a contact list interface to functionality of the present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of a vcard, implementing functionality of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The third party call control (3PCC) application program interface (API) of the present invention provides the capability for users to use a web browser or other Internet capable software to place a call, rather than using a keypad on a telephone. The open nature of the API also provides the capability to integrate 3PCC functionality with new or existing applications like customer relationship management (CRM), Contact management applications, and the like.

A system in which the present invention may be implemented is shown in FIG. 1. In one embodiment, a user computer system 102 is used to access the Internet and invoke the 3PCC API using a secure hyper-text transfer protocol (HTTPS) uniform resource locator (URL) 104 (secure sockets layer (SSL)). The URL is used to pass authorization credentials, such as login information, along with at least two phone numbers, a “from” number and a “to” number. An example of a suitable URL is:

-   -   https://secure.url.com/tpcc/makecall?username=aw&password=secret         &     -   fromnumber=17325551111&tonumber=17325552222

This URL includes specification of the secure hyper-text transfer protocol (https:), the Internet address of web server 106 (secure.url.com), the action to be performed by web server 106 (makecall), the authorization credentials (username=aw&password=secret), the telephone number of the telephone from which the call is to originate (fromnumber=17325551111) and the telephone number of the telephone to which the call is to be completed (tonumber=17325552222).

The HTTP URL activates a secure web server 106, which authenticates the user and passes the information to a CallController server system 108. Preferably, the information is passed from secure web server 106 to CallController 108 using a Remote Procedure Call (RPC) 110. The CallController 108 is a trusted peer of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) proxy server 114.

The SIP 112 is a signaling protocol for Internet conferencing, telephony, presence, events notification and instant messaging. SIP provides the necessary protocol mechanisms so that end systems and proxy servers can provide services such as call completion, call forwarding, callee and calling “number” delivery, personal mobility, terminal-type negotiation and selection, terminal capability negotiation, caller and callee authentication, blind and supervised call transfer, invitations to multicast conferences.

A goal for SIP was to provide a superset of the call processing functions and features present in the public switched telephone network (PSTN). As such, features that permit familiar telephone-like operations are present: dialing a number, causing a phone to ring, hearing ringback tones or a busy signal. Implementation and terminology are different; for example, SIP refers to a device being in an “alerting state” rather than “ringing.”

In response to receiving the RPC 110 from secure web server 106, CallController 108 invokes a number of SIP methods 112 involving SIP proxy server 114. In response, SIP proxy server 114 invokes those SIP methods 116 to the appropriate target. In addition, SIP proxy server 114 monitors any calls that are initiated and completed, in order to handle the necessary billing functions.

In particular, CallController 108 initiates a call from CallController 108 to the “from” number 118, using the SIP INVITE method 116. SIP proxy server 114, in turn, invokes the SIP INVITE method 116 targeting the “from” telephone number 118. The technique used to invoke the SIP INVITE method 116 depends upon the type of “from” telephone 118 involved. For example, if the “from” telephone 118 is an Internet Protocol (IP) telephone, the SIP INVITE 120B method may be invoked directly on the “from” telephone 118, since the IP telephone is capable of performing the necessary functions in response to the invocation of the SIP INVITE method 120B. Alternatively, if the “from” telephone 118 is a standard Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) telephone, then the SIP INVITE method 120B is invoked using a PSTN gateway server 120A to initiate the call. In either case, a call to the “from” telephone 118 is initiated.

When the “from” telephone 118 answers, CallController 108 initiates a call transfer to transfer the call to the “from” telephone 118 from the origin of the call, CallController 108, to the “to” telephone 122 number, using the SIP REFER method. This terminates the initial call between the CallController and the “from” telephone 118, and triggers the “from” telephone 118 to initiate a new call to the “to” telephone 122. This call is billed to the appropriate account.

There are three possible numbers to which the call may be billed—the “from” number, the “to” number, or a third “billto” number. The number to which the call is billed must belong to a subscriber of the telephone service provider. Thus, if the “from” number belongs to the subscriber, the call is billed to the “from” number, if the “to” number belongs to the subscriber, the call is billed to the “to” number, if neither the “from” number nor the “to” number belong to the subscriber, a third number must be billed. This third number may be supplied in the URL 104 or it may be associated with the user name that was used to login. An example of a suitable URL including a “billto” number is:

-   -   https://secure.url.com/tpcc/makecall?username=aw&password=secret         &     -   fromnumber=17325551111&tonumber=17325552222&     -   billtonumber=17325553333

Preferably, an additional HTTPS URL is exposed which allows an application to retrieve a list of phone numbers in a user's account. This URL is passed authorization credentials (login information) and returns the phone numbers associated with the account corresponding to that login information. This list can be presented to the user to select which number is to initiate the call (the “from” number), and/or to select which number is to be billed for the call (the “billto” number).

Although, typically, user computer system 102 is used to initiate the telephone calls, calls may also be initiated from a third party telephone 124. Third party telephone 124 would dial into an interactive voice response (IVR) system 126 and would be used to enter the information needed to initiate the telephone call. IVR 126 would pass the information to CallController 108 using RPC 128. The system would then initiate the call in a manner similar to that for a call initiated from user computer system 102.

The third party telephone configuration slightly changes the role of “from” telephone 118, as compared to the configuration involving only the “to” and “from” telephones. Both “to” telephone 122 and “from” telephone 118 become the “to” telephones. If the third party places a call to “from” telephone 118, SIP proxy server 114 invokes SIP INVITE methods 116, as discussed above. However, if third party telephone 124 is trying to reach “to” telephone 122, the inventive system may have an alternative and additional communication link 500 adaptively operable in response to invoking methods similar to SIP INVITE methods 116 by SIP Proxy Server 114.

As a further possibility, CALL CONTROLLER SERVER 108 can always directly call “to” telephone 122 using the link similar to communication link 500. One of possible scenarios involving such a direct connection may involve a situation when the caller operating the “from” telephone does not want experience any delays due to the busy line. Instructing the controller server to initiate contact with the “to” telephone and, once the operator of the “to” telephone answers the call from the controller server, actually connecting the “from” and “to” telephones may save the operator of the “from” telephone time.

The configuration of the inventive system involving third party telephone 124 may have numerous practical ramifications and be used in a variety of ways. For instance, one potential use may be similar to a “calling card”. The subscriber could initiate a call from any telephone, such as their hotel room telephone or a pay telephone, to any other phone, while billing the call to their own account.

Examples of users of the services provided by the present invention include business users who have a large phone book of users they need to call (e.g. sales calls), or by telemarketing operations. In this situation, the subscriber uses the “from” telephone and the calls are billed to the “from” number.

For example, this could be implemented in phone or address book software, such as using a plug-in to an email program such as MICROSOFT OUTLOOK®, or in contact manager software.

An example of such an implementation is shown in FIG. 2. In this example, a contacts window 202 includes a plurality of contacts entries 204A-C. Each contact entry 204A-C includes a contact address 208A-C and a contact telephone number 210A-C. Associated with each contact telephone number 210A-C is a software control, which, when activated causes the telephone number 210A-C to be dialed using the third party call control system shown in FIG. 1. The software control may take any form. For example, the software control may be a button or an active area associated with the telephone number 210A-C. Alternatively, the software control may be a hotkey, which may operate, for example, by a user selecting a telephone number and then pressing the hotkey. These are merely examples of suitable software controls; any software control with adequate functionality may be used.

In order to dial the telephone number 210A-C using the third party call control system shown in FIG. 1, a URL, such as those shown above, is used. The telephone number 210A-C is included in the URL, typically as the “to” number. The “from” number would typically be the phone number of a phone available to the person initiating the call. The “billto” number may be omitted from the URL, in which case the “from” number would typically be billed, or a third “billto” number may be included in the URL.

Additional enhancement to this functionality includes the capability to scan pages and documents for character strings that appear to be telephone numbers. These telephone numbers may be highlighted for the user. The user may then dial any such telephone number by selecting the number and pressing the hotkey or other software control.

Preferably, the implementation includes sufficient intelligence to understand the formats of telephone numbers, including international telephone numbers, as well as the ability to filter the characters in the telephone number to strip characters such as parentheses, hyphens, etc.

In another embodiment, subscribers could distribute software objects that provide the capability for the recipient of the object to call the subscriber. Typically, the software object is distributed using email, but it may be distributed by download or any form of electronic communications. An example of such a software object is shown in FIG. 3.

FIG. 3 illustrates the software object including a virtual contact card or “vcard” 302. In this example, vcard 302 contains information such as a company name 304, the subscriber's name 306, the address 308, and instructions for initiating a call 310. In addition, vcard 302 includes a field in which the recipient of the vcard is to enter their telephone number 312 and a software control 314, such as a button, that initiates the telephone call. The information provided, the company name 304, the subscriber's name 306, the address 308, and instructions for initiating a call 310 are merely examples and any desired information may be included in the vcard. Likewise, field 312 and software control 314 are merely examples of a software mechanism that may be used for operation of the vcard.

Included in or associated with vcard 302 and/or software control 314 is software that initiates a telephone call between the subscriber and the recipient of the vcard. When the recipient enters a telephone number in field 312 and activates software control 314, vcard 302 generates a URL and uses the URL to transmit information 316 to a vcard server 318. While the transmitted information 316 may include the identification and password information of the subscriber, preferably, transmitted information 316 does not include this information in an insecure form. For example, transmitted information 316 may include the identification and password information of the subscriber in an encrypted form, or transmitted information 316 may be a token that is used by vcard server 318 to obtain the identification and password information of the subscriber, such as by a database lookup.

Vcard server 318 receives the transmitted information 316 and generates a URL that is used to transmit information 320 to secure web server 106. This URL is similar to that generated by user computer system 102, shown in FIG. 1, which is used to communicate with secure web server 106. If the transmitted information 316 is encrypted identification and password information of the subscriber, vcard server 318 decrypts the information and uses it to generate the URL. If the transmitted information 316 is a token, vcard server 318 validates the token, and then uses the token to obtain the identification and password information of the subscriber, such as by using the token to access a database that contains the identification and password information of the subscriber. In any case, the URL is used to transmit information 320 to secure web server 106, which initiated the telephone call in a manner similar to that shown in FIG. 1.

Typically, vcard 302 includes information such as the network address of vcard server 318, token and/or encryption information, and information identifying the sender of the vcard. Alternatively, vcard 302 could include a unique token that identifies the particular call setup to be initiated, but which does not itself include information that identifies the subscriber account involved. Of course, various modifications are possible, such as including the identification information, but not the password, etc.

In the example shown in FIG. 3, vcard 302 includes field 312 in which the recipient of the vcard enters the telephone number to which the telephone call is to be completed. Alternatively, the sender of the vcard or other software object could specify a particular number to which the telephone call is to be completed. This would allow a subscriber to control the particular calls that can be made. For example, the subscriber could generate one software object that initiated a call from their grandmother's phone to the subscriber's phone, another software object that initiated a call from a friend's phone to the subscriber's phone, etc. This allows parties to initiate calls to the subscriber from their phone at any time, while billing the subscriber, the “to” number.

In addition, the sender of software object may be allowed to specify conditions for use of the software object. For example, the sender may specify that the software object expires after a particular date, the sender may specify time of day restrictions on the calls, the sender may restrict international calls, etc. If the transmitted information is encrypted, this information may be included in the encrypted information. If the transmitted information is a token, the database may include the appropriate conditional information.

Although specific embodiments of the present invention have been described, it will be understood by those of skill in the art that there are other embodiments that are equivalent to the described embodiments. For example, the present invention may also be advantageously applied to three-way and/or multiple party conferencing. For three-way conferencing, the system shown in FIG. 1 would be used to initiate two calls to the same telephone. Typically, the first call would be completed to the telephone, the second call would be initiated, the telephone would receive a call waiting indication, and the second call would be conferenced in to the first. For multiple party conferencing, the system shown in FIG. 1 would be used to initiate multiple calls to a conference bridge, with all calls billed to the account of the conference organizer.

In addition, it is important to note that while the present invention has been described in the context of a fully functioning data processing system, those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the processes of the present invention are capable of being distributed in the form of a computer readable medium of instructions and a variety of forms and that the present invention applies equally regardless of the particular type of signal bearing media actually used to carry out the distribution. Examples of computer readable media include recordable-type media such as floppy disc, a hard disk drive, RAM, and CD-ROM's, as well as transmission-type media, such as digital and analog communications links.

Accordingly, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited by the specific illustrated embodiments, but only by the scope of the appended claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. An apparatus for third party call completion comprising: means for receiving a first uniform resource locator operable over a computer network to initiate a third party call between a first telephonic device and a second telephonic device, the first uniform resource locator comprising identification of the first telephonic device and identification of the second telephonic device; means for initiating a call to the first telephonic device or the second telephonic device using a session initiation protocol (SIP) INVITE method; and means for transferring the call, in response to an answer of the call, using a SIP REFER method to establish the third party call from the first telephonic device to the second telephonic device.
 2. The of apparatus claim 1, further comprising: a computer system communicatively connected to the computer network, wherein the first uniform resource locator is generated on the computer system.
 3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the identification of the first and second telephonic devices is operative to identify a telephone number of at least one of the first and second telephonic devices.
 4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the identification of the first and second telephonic devices is further operative to identify an account to be billed.
 5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the account to be billed comprises identification of the telephone number of the first telephonic device.
 6. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the account to be billed comprises identification of the telephone number of the second telephonic device.
 7. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the account to be billed comprises identification of a telephone number of a third telephonic device.
 8. The apparatus of claim 3, further comprising: means for receiving a second uniform resource locator operable over the computer network to obtain information identifying an account to be billed.
 9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the information identifying an account to be billed comprises at least one telephone number.
 10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein at least one of the first uniform resource locator identification of the first telephonic device and the first uniform resource locator identification of the second telephonic device comprise the at least one telephone number obtained by the second uniform resource locator.
 11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first uniform resource locator further includes identification and password information that is authenticated and validated before the third party call is completed.
 12. A method of call completion comprising: (a) receiving information, transmitted at least partially over a public data communications network, indicating a unilateral call, the information comprising identification of a first telephonic device and identification of a second telephonic device wherein the received information is included in a uniform resource locator indicating a network address on a public data communications network; (b) initiating a call in response to the received information to the first telephonic device or the second telephonic device using a session initiation protocol (SIP) INVITE method; (c) transferring the call, in response to an answer of the call, using a SIP REFER method to establish the unilateral call from the first telephonic device to the second telephonic device; and (d) monitoring the unilateral call at least partially over the public data communications network.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the public data communications network is the Internet.
 14. The method of claim 13, wherein the uniform resource locator is generated on a computer system that is communicatively connected to the Internet.
 15. The method of claim 12, wherein the identification of the first telephone device comprises a telephone number of the first telephone device and the identification of the second telephone device comprises a telephone number of the second telephone device.
 16. The method of claim 12, wherein the received information further comprises identification of an account to be billed.
 17. The method of claim 15, wherein the identification of the account to be billed comprises a telephone number of the first and second telephonic devices.
 18. The method of claim 15, wherein the identification of the account to be billed comprises a telephone number of the first telephonic device.
 19. The method of claim 15, wherein the identification of the account to be billed comprises a telephone number of the second telephonic device.
 20. The method of claim 16, wherein the identification of the account to be billed comprises a telephone number of a third telephonic device.
 21. The method of claim 12, wherein the received information further comprises identification and password information. 